ROME: Five European countries on Tuesday offered to take in the 141 migrants marooned on board the Aquarius rescue vessel after it was given permission to dock in Malta, resolving a new standoff over the charity ship.
Spain offered to take 60 people and Germany said it would take “up to 50.”
France said it would accept 60 from the Aquarius as well as a second rescue boat that arrived earlier in Malta, and Portugal offered to welcome 30 people. Luxembourg was also part of the deal.
The agreement is the fifth of its kind between Western European governments since June when Italy began turning away migrant rescue ships.
EU sources said the five host countries would send immigration officials to Malta to vet their asylum claims and identify possible economic migrants, who would be returned to their countries of origin.
The boat was initially refused entry by Italy and Malta after rescuing the migrants in two separate missions off the Libyan coast on Friday.
The Aquarius first hit the headlines in June after being stranded with 630 migrants on board, causing a major diplomatic row.
Spain’s new Socialist government helped resolve the first standoff by allowing the boat to dock in Valencia and said it was again at the forefront of the solution to the latest one on Tuesday.
“Spain has coordinated a pioneering agreement with six countries to share the hosting of the people on the Aquarius... Spain will take 60 people,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on Twitter.
But Malta and France said the deal to allow the ship disembark its passengers, many of them unaccompanied teens from violence-wracked Somalia and repressive Eritrea, was their initiative.
“Malta will be making a concession allowing the vessel to enter its ports, despite having no legal obligation to do so,” said a Maltese government statement posted on Twitter.
Thanking Malta for its gesture, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter: “There is no alternative to cooperation.”
But EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos warned that Europe could not rely on “ad-hoc arrangements.”
Calling in a statement for “sustainable solutions,” he said: “It is not the responsibility of one or a few member states only, but of the European Union as a whole.”
After elections in March that brought a populist, anti-immigrant government to power in Italy, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini began turning away rescue ships operated by foreign NGOs.
For years, Italy had pleaded with its EU partners for help with a massive influx of arrivals that has seen 700,000 people land in the country since 2013, most of whom had made the short but treacherous sea crossing from Libya.
On Saturday, Salvini said the Aquarius would “never see an Italian port” again, accusing it of encouraging smugglers and migrants to take to the water in the knowledge that they will be rescued.
The Italian coast guard continues to rescue migrants, however.
Malta’s government initially defended its decision to turn the Aquarius away, saying it was “neither the coordinating nor the competent authority for such a rescue” and had “no legal obligation” to provide a place of safety.
The government of the British territory of Gibraltar also announced late Monday that the ship would no longer be allowed to operate under its maritime flag.
The increasingly hostile stance reflects hardening public opinion in Europe toward migrants — despite arrivals dipping sharply since 2015, when over a million people fleeing war or poverty crossed the Mediterranean.
The Aquarius has become a symbol of the unwillingness of many European countries to accept more newcomers, with Italy siding with conservative governments in eastern Europe intent on keeping out migrants.
At a summit in late June EU leaders agreed to consider setting up migrant processing centers outside the bloc, most likely in North Africa, in a bid to discourage them from boarding smuggler boats.
They also agreed to look at setting up “controlled centers” on European soil to sort refugees in need of protection from economic migrants — but no country has offered to host any such centers.
The proposals are due for discussion at an EU migration summit in Austria in September.
European countries reach deal to share Aquarius migrants
European countries reach deal to share Aquarius migrants
- Spain offered to take 60 people and Germany said it would take “up to 50”
- France said it would accept 60 from the Aquarius as well as a second rescue boat that arrived earlier in Malta
Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer
- Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
- A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on Monday appealed their convictions for graft, his lawyer said.
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.
Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Monday it had yet to receive any signals from the United States about arranging a possible meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, but remained ready to organize such an encounter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges action against ‘evil’ on Auschwitz anniversary
- The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
- Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker
KYIV : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said the world must unite against evil, in comments marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death.
The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 claiming that the government in Kyiv contained neo-Nazi elements and saying the country must be demilitarized.
Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker and said some countries are still trying to destroy entire nations.
“We must overcome the hatred that gives rise to abuse and murder. We must prevent forgetfulness,” he said, according to a statement from the presidency.
“And it is everyone’s mission to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning,” he added.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia’s invasion “brought back to Ukrainian soil horrors that Europe has not seen since World War II.”
“Jewish communities of Ukraine are also suffering from constant Russian terror, in particular in the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, which have a population of over a million, and other localities,” it added.
The Holocaust decimated the Jewish community in Ukraine, which during World War II was part of the Soviet Union.
It was not the first massacre of Jewish people in Ukraine’s history, which had seen previous anti-Semitic pogroms.
Russia drone barrage sparks fire in western Ukraine
KYIV: A barrage of more than 100 Russian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine and damaged residential buildings in other regions, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
The Ukrainian airforce said Moscow had dispatched 104 drones, including attack drones, and that 57 of the unmanned aerial vehicles had been shot down.
Emergency services in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region said the strikes had resulted in two fires at an industrial facility, and that firefighters were working to extinguish one.
They did not specify the type of facility hit but said there were no casualties.
The airforce said there was damage in four Ukrainian regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard drones flying overhead and air defense systems countering the attack.
